Because of his stature in the music industry and celebrity world, N.E.R.D. will always be perceived as Pharrell‘s group, but upon closer look, there really is no captain. N.E.R.D., like most good music groups, is a collective force, whose leaders only functions as such off the stage.
On stage and on record, one gets the feeling Pharrell as a solo artist would struggle for credibility if it not for the help of his partners Chad Hugo and Shay Haley. So even though Pharrell is the loudest one in the bunch, it’s all for the sake of the group.
After all, the soft spoken Shay and the even softer spoken Chad aren’t going to be the ones to get all the cult-like attention they’ve garnered throughout the years.
The Pharrell as spokesperson role was still in full effect when Shay and he sat down on the phone with GlobalGrind to discuss their oft-delayed next album, Nothing. Though it took place weeks before the album’s initial September release, Nothing has been pushed back again until sometime late in the Fall.
But over the summer, the Nelly Furtado assisted first single, ‘Hot-N-Fun’ was one of the season’s more underrated club hits and since the interview, the group has announced a joint tour with electro-pop-rock band The Gorillaz beginning October 6.
GlobalGrind talked with N.E.R.D. (read: mostly Pharrell) about their new album, the video for ‘Hot-N-Fun’ and what they did about Nothing.
GlobalGrind: Not to start off non-music related, but what were you all wearing in the ‘Hot-N-Fun’ video?
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Pharrell: You know what? It’s a movement, believe it or not. You know, if you gotta go to war, then you wear military gear, know what I’m saying? So it’s just kinda matching the feeling of what we tryin’ to do, and right now we just feel like it’s a sign of the times.
Everything’s changing right now around us, and we’re not sure that everyone’s picking it up. But you know, we just made a bunch of songs on the album, that kinda illustrate that, just kinda telling everyone like “Hey, everything’s changing, everything’s changing around you.’
We just decided to have that conversation. It’s like a movie, the movies about like having it basically, speaking in metaphor, like having a conversation with women, and we were just talking about like the world, and how its changing, and where it’s headed.
And in that conversation, when you hear that song, when you hear the texture of our lyrics, of the sound, this is what it matches, the clothes match the beat.
NEXT PAGE: N.E.R.D. INTERVIEW CONTINUED
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GlobalGrind: Well, ex
